Anglia105E

Thanks Trevor, and good to hear that you are enjoying my build . . . You will not be disappointed if you do purchase one of these excellent kits, and I have been most impressed with each ICM kit that I have had the pleasure to build so far . . . Compared with top quality kits by Tamiya, Moebius, Gunze Sangyo, Italeri, Emhar and Revell, these ICM kits are right up there with the best . . . David

Thanks a lot Csaba . . . I think you are correct in saying that some of the material needs to be removed, to simulate the weight of the driver sitting on the seat cushion . . . Also, the legs will have to be shortened, as they are already too long, even before any cutting. My feeling is that the figure is probably out of scale, but this would be most unusual for a company like ICM, who nearly always get things absolutely 100% right . . . David

Yes David, there will be a kind of diorama setting for the photography and the videos later, which will feature a background A3 print in B&W of the Highland Park Plant and also a Franklin Mint diecast 1927 Rolls-Royce Phantom I ( Fred Astaire ) . . . The Model T Ford will be rolling, hopefully ( fishing line ). David W.

Cheers, Brian . . . Fingers crossed ! David

The windshield frame has been glued to the top edge of the firewall, but in doing so, the lower glass pane became unglued . . . Having refitted the lower screen, using Crystal Clear glue the assembly was put to one side to set overnight. With the windshield in place, this looks more like a car now . . . Then I test fitted the canvas top and frame, which has enhanced the look of the car even further. One of the engineers is checking the carbide generator, while a second engineer is supervising . . . I need to give the driver figure some thought, and along with some helpful suggestions by fellow MCM members I should be able to come up with some sort of idea . . . One involves using a hair dryer to heat up the area of the figure that I want to bend, and another idea involves cutting away part of the lower section of the figure. Maybe if I sleep on it, and take a fresh look tomorrow . . . David

All of your interior work has come together nicely David, and those door cards will be fine once you have trimmed them a little . . . This Aoshima Taxi Cab has all the makings of an excellent build . . . Good job on the exterior paintwork. We are mastering the black finish steadily. David W.

Certainly I will have a look at that possibility, Brian . . . I am open to any helpful suggestions regarding this problem. Almost anything is worth a try at this stage ! This driver is going to have some manipulation ( gently ) . . . David

I don't usually post a photo of myself working inside the loft, but here is one that shows me having a coffee and a biscuit, while the outside temperatures are sub-zero . . . The foot pedals board is glued in place, and the upper body sides at the front edges are not the best fit just yet . . . Now then gents . . . A major issue has surfaced, which has caught me out. The driver figure was purchased as one of two American Motorists by ICM in 1:24 scale . . . These figures are intended for the Touring version of the Model T Ford, but quite reasonably I thought, these should fit the Roadster version also . . . The driver figure does not fit into the driving seat of the car, and he appears too large. This is not just a small discrepancy, as the driver is 10 mm higher than the seat base and his left hand that should rest on the body side top edge, is also 10 mm too high. With his feet on the floor of the driver's compartment, there is no way that I can shorten the figure or modify the car . . . As you can observe from the following series of photos, the box art shows the position of the driver, and how this relates to the position of the driver figure in the model car . . . I have made a point of checking the precise dimensions of the real Model T Ford, and they confirm that the Touring version has the same dimensions as the Roadster version, for width, height and length, apart from the Touring version being one foot longer overall . . . I cannot understand why the driver figure by ICM does not even come close to fitting into the driver's seating position, and I am disappointed. David

The mildly irritating aspect of it was that my first attempt at the gas tank turned out really well, and then I realised I hadn't checked the height of the tank correctly . . . My carelessness ! Floating pedals . . . Now there's a thing . . . David

Funny thing is David, the glue stick idea for the fuel tank came to me immediately following the failure of the solder container material . . . It always surprises me when ICM get something wrong, and usually such a basic error, when 99% of their instructions are spot on. Usually it is something so minor, such as the kit parts numbering, or perhaps left or right shown the wrong way round, but nothing to worry about unduly . . . David W.

There has been a slight change of plan with the gas tank idea . . . I did go to all the trouble of scratch building the tank from a 35 mm length of solder container, which came out very nicely, only to find that the tank was too large for the car. The height of the tank was such that the seat could not fit onto the seat support panel . . . So, I got my thinking cap on, and came up with a better idea . . . Using a glue stick from my hot glue gun, I cut a 30 mm length of glue stick and painted this with Humbrol Aluminium enamel. Then I cut off a thin layer from one end of a piece of styrene sprue to make the filler cap for the gas tank. The result is far better, and most importantly, the seat rests on the seat support and above the tank as it should. I am happy with the gas tank and it looks right. Moving on to the three foot pedals, these have been mounted successfully . . . A piece of thin balsa wood was super glued in place on the back surface of the three slots, and the stalks of the three pedals were then super glued into recessed indentations on the balsa wood. I had seen a YouTube video where the model builder explained how the ICM instructions tell you to put the pedal stalks through the three slots and glue them to . . . what? Actually, there is nothing to glue the parts to at all, just empty space . . . My balsa wood idea seems to have worked well. David

Very interesting build Ken . . . These ICM kits are really good in my opinion, as indeed are the Miniart kits, also from Ukraine . . . David

You and I seem to have a similar approach when it comes to scratch building ideas . . . See my next post for details of a slight change of plan . . . David W.

Pleased to hear that you like this one Len . . . As regards the gas tank, there has been a slight change of plan, which is detailed in my next post . . . David

Thanks Brian . . . This 1:24 scale build is getting the kind of attention that I gave to the 1:16 scale Rolls-Royce build . . . David

Assembling the four body panels was actually very tricky . . . Part of the problem was of course my 71 year old fingers fumbling with the parts. I had already cleared the joining edges of the body panels, so that there were no traces of the black paint. Once Revell styrene glue had been applied to those clean edges, I carefully and precisely positioned the adjoining panels . . . Holding them steady while the glue took hold was quite a challenge for me. Anyway, the parts all went together reasonably well, and the following photos show the upper body being test fitted to the lower body assembly . . . The next part to be fitted into the upper body was the seat support panel, which slotted in nicely and was glued in place. As I was test fitting the seat onto the seat support panel I found that the overall fit of the seat within the body was so good that no glue would be required. This led me to an interesting idea . . . Maybe I could fabricate / scratch build a petrol tank / gas tank to fit under the seat, as on the real car? So, the plan now is to make a gas tank from an empty plastic solder container, then glue a circular disc of thin white card to the open end of the container, paint the tank in aluminium enamel and glue the tank inside the under seat space . . .The seat can be placed on top of the tank, with no glue needed, allowing the tank to be viewed easily. A filler cap can also be added to reproduce the tank accurately. David

Thanks a lot Andy . . . Yes, I am quite pleased with the progress so far on this build. This is turning out to be a really interesting model car. We have heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures here in England at the moment, for at least a few days until the weekend . . . David

Thank you David G., and I do like to think of it as model engineering . . . Sometimes I get things right, but not always ! David W.

Thanks Carl . . . Your comments are always appreciated. David

The assembled firewall has now been glued in place, and also the support bar between the firewall and the radiator shell is glued in place. This support bar will have the two bonnet / hood panels attached to it at some point . . . One of the four spark plug leads is waiting to be glued to the top left, second row down white porcelain pin, having already been attached to the No.1 spark plug . . . The floor panel is resting on it's mounting points, and almost ready for fitting. I have prepared the four body panels that you see in the following photos, by scraping the excess black paint from the joining edges, and then test fitting these panels. They are the trunk, the seat back and the two body sides . . . David

First of all, I cut out a piece of thin white card that fitted precisely into the frame of the firewall, and this was PVA glued to the firewall panel . . . Then I painted the white card with the Vallejo Mahogany Brown and Burnt Red mix, to simulate the cherry wood colour. Next step was to cut ten 3 mm lengths of the Evergreen 0.025 inch styrene rod, so that I had 10 white porcelain pins . . . Using a dress pin, the one in the photo with a yellow top, I made ten holes in the card, and then used a push pin with the green top, to enlarge the holes slightly . . . My thinking was to insert each of the ten white styrene pins into the holes of the card, and then the super glue would fix the ends of the pins to the styrene firewall part itself. This procedure seems to have worked quite well. All ten white porcelain pins are in place and setting overnight . . . The four spark plug leads will be attached to the second row of pins down from the top . . . David

In the first place, I cannot understand why these parts have to fall to the floor . . . Almost on a daily basis, small kit parts leave my fingers and head off downwards to oblivion. Then, despite an extremely thorough search, usually on my hands and knees ( not easy at 71 ), using a good hand held lamp and staring desperately at every single square inch of the hard wood floor . . . Nothing . . . Absolutely no sign of the elusive missing part. The part has seemingly gone forever . . . Unless as you say, the part mysteriously and mockingly, suddenly appears within easy view later ! David W.

Thanks very much Mark . . . I can see from your excellent reference photos how these pins must be white porcelain. Already, I have decided last night to remove my first attempt at those pins, and re-do them in a different material, so this will be my opportunity to colour them in white as you suggest . . . Of course, I do want the detail for this Model T Ford build to be as accurate as possible, so your expert knowledge has helped me at just the right time ! Thank you again Mark . . . David

All four pins have been super glued to the firewall, and these have been painted Vallejo Brass acrylic. One spark plug lead has been glued in place to spark plug No.1 and the terminals have been painted brass also. The firewall has now been lowered onto the lower body floor and glued to the mountings. Next up, following overnight setting, there will be three more spark plug leads added, and all four leads will be glued to the pins on the firewall. Once the bracing strut that goes between the radiator shell and the firewall has been glued in position, I shall move on to the body parts assembly. David

I do understand your concerns regarding the fumes and the open flame, and it's not something that I do very often . . . More progress below . . . David W.